Iraq vs US Bonds

Theirs are considered safer than ours!  Which is strange considering it's probably our debt that's helping back them...

From John Mauldin:

And it can get much worse for some banks. In the "for what it's worth" department, Iraq's bonds are now considered safer than those of many US banks. The country's $2.7 billion of 5.8% bonds due 2028 have gained 45% since August 2007, according to Merrill Lynch &  Co. indexes. Investors demand 4.84 percentage points more in yield to own the debt instead of Treasuries, down from 7.26 percentage points a year ago. The spread is narrower than for notes of Ohio  banks National City Corp. and KeyCorp, suggesting Baghdad  may be safer for bond investors than Cleveland. National City and KeyCorp, based in Cleveland, have debt ratings of A and spreads of 959 basis points (9.59%) and 7.55 basis points (7.55%), respectively. Iraq  debt has no ratings. Clearly the market is ignoring the rating agencies which give the banks an "A" rating. Their debt is priced at the junk level. Go figure. (Source: Bloomberg)